by Chris Hechtl
Of course not everything had gone off as originally planned. When Admiral Irons had been exiled from Pyrax, the plan and Prometheus had been mothballed. Sure, her father, Captain Logan, had dusted the idea of the plan off from time to time, but little work on Prometheus or the plan had been done. That was until the battle of B101a1 and the intervention of Admiral Irons.
Admiral Irons had kicked Pyrax into high gear by sending Firefly and the other ships they'd captured back to the system stuffed with not only gear but also newly promoted personnel and fresh orders to get things going again.
The promotions came with a few keys to the replicators. They still couldn't produce everything that went into a ship, for instance hyperdrives, but the yard was finally back on track. Once the admiral set up shop in Antigua, the regular convoys between the systems would transport components and personnel back and forth between the various yards and industrial centers.
That was the general plan at any rate. There was a lot of details to work out. For instance it would be at least eighteen months more before the admiral's group arrived in Antigua. They had his planned itinerary, his group had a voyage of at least two years, not including stops within star systems. A lot could change in that time period.
The admiral hadn't given a detailed plan for Prometheus, just a point and shoot mission objective outline. "Get Prometheus finished and on her mission," had been his main order. He was a firm believer in giving officers a basic structure, then allowing them to follow their own initiative to fulfill the mission orders he assigned. It wasn't like he could be there to oversee them personally. Shelby had worked on her own to define the mission objectives as she saw it while Prometheus had been under construction, but that had been pared down by the fleet staff in Pyrax.
The new plan was incremental in scope, something she grudgingly approved of in hindsight. In order for them to get underway as quickly as possible, Prometheus with a minimum escort would hit the southern loop with a light brush, sort of an introduction and extended shakedown cruise planned to last two years. Prometheus was intended to just provide the colonies she contacted with the minimum basics, enough to wet their appetite and get them on board for more. They were not to saturate the economies with goods and thus destroy them, or send them into a crushing depression. They were to use their abilities to aide in education, medicine, search and rescue, travel, and trade where possible. They were to lay the ground work for future infrastructure investment while extending an olive branch and showing the flag. Where possible they were to build gas giant refineries and trade with the local population.
They were also supposed to gather intelligence, and where possible encounter the ships that were on the route and get information from them, along with upgrading them in trade when possible. Two ships were of interest, the yacht Carib Queen which had left Pyrax just before the battle of Pyrax almost five years ago, and the freighter Mariah’s Mischief. There was also some file about the Chimera's, and the ship “Old Nelly” tucked in her classified files that could only be opened if they were encountered.
The satellites they were deploying would track and record transits, as well as ion and energy signatures. The sensor departments on each of the ships were also tasked with running tracking exercises on any ion trails they encountered. Ion trails were sublight trails of exhaust a ship left behind while crossing a star system. Unfortunately, there was no way to track a ship in hyper, but by running a spectrographic analysis of an ion trail they could get information such as speed, heading, general ideas on mass, as well as a general idea on when the trail was laid.
Since they couldn't tell a ship's speed and course in hyper, they could compare the timeline of trails in each system and from that get a rough inference of a ship's speed. They could confirm that with any intel about the ships that had transited through the system after talking to the natives.
Hopefully, they'd eventually be able to also match the ion trails to specific ships later on when they compared the records from the satellites or their own records. A sensor tech had already positively identified the signatures of Midnight MX2 and Mariah’s Mischief. From the look of it, the two ships as well as other ships yet to be identified had passed through the area some time ago; another two months and the solar winds would had obliterated their trail completely.
There was traffic going in both directions of the loop of course. It would be interesting to meet the civilian ships, possibly instructive for both sides too. They wanted to show the flag after all. Meeting them on their way to Pyrax would prime them for what they were going to see…and it would be a good opportunity to pass back a report or passengers if the opportunity arose.
There was one other last minute order. The Seti Alpha system had sent a request to join the Federation like Gaston. They had held a planet wide ballot, years ago. It had passed with 80 percent approval, and trade with the navy had commenced on an intermittent basis ever since. They unfortunately were sketchy on details of how much they wanted to be involved in the navy, other than a request for a military base. They were, however, very eager for formal contact. Shelby was to iron out those details and build the base or at least get it started before it was her time to move on.
When Prometheus returned to Pyrax, she would pick up additional escorts and support ships and then start the loop all over again or head along the Northern loop. Each pass would add more detail, building on the infrastructure and contacts made before, and get people used to the idea of a return to civilization and the Federation. Hopefully, they would also finish combating the news that Pyrax had been invaded nearly five years ago. Shelby pursed her lips in a slight puckering frown. No one had caught up to Carib Queen yet, but they had already let other systems know the pirates had been dealt with or at least those pirates. According to the intel, Captain Mayweather and the other castaways from the yacht had provided, the ship could barely hit the low octaves of beta in short hops. The long ones made the little ship drop to the lowest octaves to conserve power and equipment.
That was another incentive they had to dangle before the various colonies. Not only faster contact and trade, but also, membership in the Federation came with a promise of protection. With Horath going on the offensive, that was vital to get across to everyone.
There had been some debate about forcing colonies to accept her gifts or in placing equipment in the system without permission, or mining without permission. From the intent of Admiral Irons' orders however, Shelby deduced that he wanted Prometheus to make friends, not enemies. She'd do her best.
What urked a few of the command staff was that she'd rammed through the mission with only the basic outline and mission orders. They'd had four plus years to get their acts together and work on the plan, waiting around for the bureaucrats to run it through committee at this stage was out.
One of the great things about Prometheus was her industrial replicators. She could make things up on her own on demand. She had her holds filled with her initial load to deliver, but in each system, hopefully, she would not only use her tugs to replenish her stocks but also build what the colony most needed.
“Well, you did have something to do with our long delay, Ma'am,” Lieutenant Silverfish said, turning to her. Shelby flinched slightly, startled out of her woolgathering.
Shelby cocked her head to the domestic Neocat, then shrugged. “The great thing about being the boss Silver, I can blame who I want when I want,” she said. The Neocat purred a chuckle then returned his attention to his station.
The cat was right though, Shelby thought. She had put them off schedule by a couple weeks when she had volunteered Prometheus's services to her dad and the yard. It had been good in a way, giving them an extended time to work up and get the kinks out. There had been quite a few, and not having one of their industrial replicators had caused a few…lively debates among the crew. Fortunately most of that was behind them now.
No, she'd been right to offer to help out, and it had done the yard a lot of good and her crew even mor
e so. They had come together strong and were working and acting like a well-oiled machine. That was good. She had reasoned that by volunteering it would allow them that time and keep her crew busy while her escorts finished building. She was right, but she hadn't realized her father would keep her on task right up until they broke orbit to go to Seti Alpha 4.
She'd hoped they shake loose another support ship or two, but all the freighters were running goods and people between Agnosta, Antigua, and Gaston. She'd been lucky to get Bertha, their tanker and light freighter. Her father had given her an extra squadron of long range tugs and support bots in place of the missing support ships and the fighter squadron she'd planned on having. It was either that or wait another year before one of the ships and the missing squadron became available. No one wanted that, so they'd sailed.
They had done good work supporting the yard though, and the extra credit had allowed her to weasel a few toys out of her father. She had tucked away a few goodies in the void where the number six replicator was supposed to be. She'd convinced her dad to let her pack the giant compartment with a selection of decoys and drones that she was certain would come in handy in the future. The compartment had its own doors, so they could be kicked out into space whenever she needed a force multiplier.
Prometheus was a customized ship she realized, a tender with a cruiser's shields and defenses, but without her firepower to go along with it. Her drones would help to balance that out, or so she hoped. Actually, she hoped she never had to find out. If it came down to a shooting match, her orders were to sit it out or run and let her escorts handle combat.
“Think they'll do okay?” Ensign Ezekiel Gunner asked, nodding to the plot where the other ships were riding on station to the larger tender. “Bertha didn't get a lot of time to work up,” he said, sounding concerned.
“She'll do fine. She's a tanker. She doesn't have all the systems and crew we've got,” Ensign Conrad Murray, the TACO said.
“Yeah…I suppose,” the ops officer replied, checking his station readouts.
“They'll be fine. I'm more worried about our two escorts,” Shelby said, glancing at the frigates. Descartes and Loch had some time to work up while Bertha finished her builders’ trials and tanked up, but not a lot of time. The Horseshoe Crab was considered an experimental escort variant of the basic horseshoe. She was shaped somewhat like a horseshoe crab that gave her name, a long body with a long thick tail. The tail and extended body held extra room for fuel, point defense, munitions, parts, a small class two backup fusion reactor, and a tiny claustrophobic boat bay.
The long tail also held ECM, point defense lasers, and missile pod hard points. She could fire a single broadside of a destroyer and then eject the pods. Or she could be outfitted with torpedoes to make runs into the teeth of another ship or squadron like an oversized fighter.
Her size, however, came at some cost. Oh, she realized the need, the extra size gave the ship more redundancy and almost doubled her range, but at the cost of some of her speed and maneuverability. An escort destroyer might have been the better platform to go with, she thought. In fact, that was what she'd planned on having in the first place.
Not that anyone had asked her, she thought wryly. Everyone was up in arms over the battle of B101a1 and Antigua. Just about every ship was going to be stuck defending Agnosta, Antigua, and the Pyrax systems or running convoy escort for the foreseeable future. Besides, had they waited on a more suitable pair of escorts they'd still be in Pyrax, not on their way to the Seti Alpha system.
Seti Alpha, she thought, looking at the briefing. It was too early to really get into it, they had two weeks before they arrived. But…she glanced at the brief. Seti Alpha was the name of the system she reminded herself, Seti Alpha 4 was the planet, the fourth in the system outward from her star. But most people got the two confused, like the Janus system and her planet Gaston.
It'd be easier if they named the things with numbers. Then she thought about it. Probably some petty bureaucrat or AI had back in the explorer days. She couldn't blame the locals for wanting a name and not a number or worse, an alpha numeric designation. She shuddered.
They were still working on the communications and squadron handling in hyper. A ship couldn't communicate in hyper through radio or laser, after all, neither were faster than light. Tachyons streams could be used if the ships were close enough, but the streams tended to be bent and twisted in hyperspace. The best method for ships to communicate in hyper was to fluctuate their shields. It was crude even in the present day, only a couple steps up from Morse code, but it worked. Using the fluctuating shields and keeping an eye on the squadron's position at all times allowed them to keep together and coordinate their transit efficiently.
Even though they were nine days out of their three light year, sixteen day journey, Loch was still having issues with her station keeping, Shelby made a note of it. She'd pulled a couple unannounced drills, really just maneuvering Prometheus and seeing how long it took her escorts to catch up. She knew most of the crews were green, despite the veterans intermixed in their companies.
Keeping them on their toes and paying attention was worth the fuel and power they used, and it let the crews get a little extra training in. She smiled ever so slightly. Besides, it wouldn't do to have them bored to tears. She tapped at the computer and then flicked the signal to the ship's AI to run a battle station drill in an hour.
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The day they were scheduled to exit hyperspace it was obvious that the crew was settled in nicely. They were a bit smug, she thought, and she had to admit, they'd earned it. She and Lieutenant Zeb, her Veraxin XO, had run them ragged in sims to get them more acquainted over the past several weeks.
Fortunately, the crew of Prometheus were all experienced spacers, engineers, and had all crossed the hyperwall at one point in their lives or career. Once they were in Seti Alpha space, Prometheus put the idea of a Neptune party to rest; none of the crew needed it. The majority of the crews of the two escorts and Bertha were a different story. They held their own small Neptune parties once Seti Alpha was declared safe. There was a joint Marine and Navy crew on the tanker Bertha. If all went well with the final negotiations, they would set up in the bases Prometheus built. A few of their number were natives to Pyrax, so they had the dubious honor of searching Neptune's depths for squishy pearls and other fun activities.
Oscar Levinson, Captain of Descartes, refused to participate in the festivities. Shelby teased him about it but he brushed it off curtly. "Someone has to stay on duty."
Levinson was a bit of a pompous ass; he reminded her of Harris sometimes. She called him Oscar sometimes, and he seemed to resent it but didn't say anything about it. She knew he was a proud man, proud of being a ship's captain, and proud that his ship was the first frigate of her class produced in Pyrax. He'd done a lot to iron out the kinks that usually cropped up in such a situation, making him even more insufferable to some.
His prickly demeanor was offset by Captain Yu, his counterpart on Loch. Captain Yu was young, but eager. He didn't look it though, smooth, clean cut, mature, right up until you saw the lively twinkle in his eyes. He was another that wanted to prove himself, Shelby thought. She felt a pang; in a lot of ways, they all did. She wanted this mission to work, to work well.
“Captain, we'll have the parts for Loch off the ship shortly,” Cynthia said. "We've also gotten the satellites in position and stealthed a million kilometers out from both jump points."
“Parts?” Shelby echoed.
“Some minor teething issues,” Cynthia said, waving a dismissive hand. “A computer issue, some trouble with her starboard fuel valves. Stuck valves and a short in a couple servos. Her chief is on it,” she said.
“Ah,” Shelby nodded. She'd expected a few minor hiccups. Apparently she was right. “Any answer to our hail from the planet?”
“Not yet…coming in now, Ma'am,” the com rating said.
“Two for two,” Shelby said. “Audio or visual?
” She asked. They were cruising about two and a half days out from the planet.
“Both, Ma'am,” the rating reported.
“Put it on,” she said with a nod.
“Welcome to Seti Alpha!” a man said with a broad grin of white even teeth. “Prometheus, we have been expecting you for some time. Io and the other ships mentioned you, but we had thought you were still just a dream,” he said. “We have many people eager to meet you. And I believe your recruiters have lined up many people to join the Navy and Marines,” the man said, then put his hand over his heart. “But I've been remiss, my manners,” he said tisk tisking.
Shelby snorted; the guy was a character. “My name is Adam Hotonga,” he said, smiling brightly. Against his dark skin it was amazing. “And yes, before you ask, I've been to our hospital, and it is a wonder! You people do good work! We can't wait to see what you will do to help us!” he said eagerly.
Shelby hit the pause with her implants and then frowned. “Anyone know what he's talking about?”
“I may know, Ma'am,” the ship's AI replied. Shelby turned to the avatar of Prometheus. The AI was in a blue naval day uniform. He was bald and lacked a lot of detail. Unfortunately ,he was a class two dumb AI; they hadn't been able to swing an upgrade or better AI.
“And?”
“Intel extract states that the ship Io 11 came through six years ago after dropping off Admiral Irons in Pyrax. According to the intel he passed on then and confirmed later; the ship is a Cabeiri Epsilon class tender.” Specs of the ship came up. Shelby waved them away; she knew them since the ship was almost the same as her own. “Apparently they…shanghaied a local doctor from the planet, Doctor Duello McFile. They were planning to return him to the planet,” the AI said. “And in compensation for his efforts on their behalf, they planned and actually did set up a fully modern hospital for him and the planet to use. Apparently Admiral Irons had a hand in helping them manufacture the equipment and supplies for it before they left Pyrax.”